Monday, March 24, 2014

#Wikipedia MOS:DABRL#Red_links

If the title is immediately clear to you, it may be that you have immersed yourself in Wikipedia lore to an extend that may not be healthy. For the rest of us, it is about the use of red links. Wikipedia policy has a lot of red tape and it is often not clear and obvious. For instance: "A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should only be included on a disambiguation page when an article (not just disambiguation pages) also includes that red link." The problem here is that a link to a disambiguation page is not a red link.

The "Redwd" template is a game changer when you are considering the whole notion of red links. Technically it is not a red link. It is a template that includes the functionality of a red link. It refers to both Wikidata and to Reasonator and consequently it demonstrates that information exists on a similar level as a "stub". Like a stub, the information can be expanded by adding statements in Wikidata.

The difference between a stub and a Reasonator page on the same subject is, that when statements have been added, new information will show in all Wikipedias that use this functionality. It will show when an item is selected when "expanded Wikidata search" is used.

There is an additional opportunity; disambiguation pages are comparable to the result of a search using the Reasonator. Often Reasonator has more results than what can be found on a disambiguation page. The opportunity exists to add a link to Reasonator from each "disambiguation" page.